


George Barrow-Kent

by hma1313



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Parents, M/M, did i mention PARENTS
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-31
Updated: 2015-10-31
Packaged: 2018-04-28 22:14:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5107559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hma1313/pseuds/hma1313
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Following the story of Thomas, Jimmy and their son George.</p>
            </blockquote>





	George Barrow-Kent

**Author's Note:**

> Because Thomas and Jimmy as parents seems like the cutest thing ever and I've spent the last few days wondering why there seems to be a distinct lack of parent!AU in this fandom.

Thomas was sure that the only other time in his life he'd been as nervous as he was now was on his wedding day. He and his husband Jimmy were sitting in a couple of very uncomfortable chairs at the adoption centre, waiting for the receptionist to call their names and say they could go through.

The door at the other side of the waiting room looked far too intimidating for Thomas' liking. It was just a very basic door, probably not even solid wood, but it might as well have been bolted, chained, locked and made of steel for the way it was making Thomas feel.

"Hey," Jimmy said, giving his husband's hand a quick squeeze. "It's going to be fine."

"I know." Thomas gave Jimmy what he hoped was a reassuring smile and went back to staring at the door. "I'm just nervous."

"Mr and Mr Barrow-Kent," the receptionist called. "You can go through now."

They got up and walked across the room, through the intimidating door and into an office, where social worker Mrs Hughes was sat behind a desk. She smiled widely as the entered the room, telling them to sit down and offering them tea and biscuits.

"Now," she said. "You've come to pick up George today, isn't that right?"

They nodded, Thomas reaching across the gap between the two chairs they were sat in for Jimmy's hand.

"Wonderful. He's just as excited and nervous as you are, believe me. Before I get Anna to bring him in, there's a few things I need to go over with you and a couple of bits you need to sign. Is that okay?"

They nodded again. Mrs Hughes pulled a file out of her desk and opened it, starting to talk about expectations charters, monthly checkups and what a big thing they were doing. She talked about school, the importance of education and learning, and how George would likely get ill at some point and they had to be ready to deal with that. They assured her that he was already enrolled in the local primary school, due to start in September, and they had him registered with their GP, dentist and optician. George's room was ready and waiting at their house above Thomas' clock makers business, there was a garden out back for him to play in as well as the park down the street, and child gates were fitted on all necessary doors.

"It seems like you're well and truly ready, Mr and Mr Barrow-Kent," Mrs Hughes smiled. "Just sign on the dotted line and I'll get Anna to bring him in."

George was a little boy of four, dressed in a sailor suit when the door opened and he was brought in. He'd been born into a prestigious house in the Yorkshire countryside, but his parents had tragically died in a car crash and he'd been in children's homes and with foster carers ever since. He'd already stayed with Thomas and Jimmy for a couple of trial periods, and he'd loved every minute of it. Mrs Hughes was always reluctant to bring him back to the children's home at the end of those visits, as George always came back so much happier, and she could tell they were going to the perfect family together.

George ran across the room when he saw Thomas and Jimmy sitting there, his face splitting into the biggest grin Mrs Hughes had ever seen a child have on adoption day. He threw his little arms around their legs, and immediately demanded that Thomas give him a piggy back ride.

"Well, that's all," Mrs Hughes said, getting up and going to open the door for them. "Remember, if you find yourself in any difficulty, we're just a phone call away."

"Thank you, Mrs Hughes," Jimmy said. "For everything."

"Yes, thank you," Thomas echoed, shifting George into a better position on his back before turning to Jimmy. "Let's get this young man home, shall we?"

"Bye-bye," George said, waving one of his small hands in the direction of Mrs Hughes.

* * *

Life quickly settled into a pattern at the Barrow-Kent household once George started going to school. Thomas was up, showered and dressed by seven, and he'd be helping George get washed and dressed whilst Jimmy dragged himself out of bed and into the kitchen to make everyone's lunches. They ate breakfast together, and then Jimmy would have a shower himself as Thomas played with George and packed his school bag for him. Jimmy would then take George to school as Thomas went downstairs to get ready to open the shop. Jimmy worked at the shop as well, but he worked front of house whilst Thomas stayed in the back, fixing and building clocks. At three, Thomas would go and pick George up from school, which had at first caused some confused looks in the playground from the mothers who'd seen someone George also called Daddy dropping him off for school that morning.

George liked school. He was quickly learning to read and write, he was friends with a lot of his classmates. His favourite subject, though, was maths, (or numeracy as they insisted on calling it in primary school) and he said he wanted to be a clock maker like his daddy when he was older.

When Thomas went to pick George up from school one windy day in the middle of October, he was greeted by a crying boy with tears running down his cheeks.

"Hey, hey, what's the matter?" Thomas asked, crouching down to George-level, taking his handkerchief out of his pocket and wiping away his son's tears. "Why are you crying?"

"They- they being mean, Daddy," George snivelled, rubbing his eyes with balled up fists. "About you and Daddy."

Thomas sighed. He should've known something like this was going to happen at some point. Ultimately, it didn't matter that there was marriage equality and they were allowed to adopt and all of that because there were always going to be ignorant people who passed their beliefs onto their children. "Alright," he said, picking up George and balancing him on his hip. "Shall we go and talk to Mrs Mason about it?"

George gave a slow nod and Thomas made his way into the school to George's classroom where his teacher, Mrs Mason, was putting up a display of some of the artwork the children had done recently. She smiled and walked over to greet them as they entered the classroom, putting down the staple gun on her desk.

"Sorry, Mr Barrow-Kent," she said. "I would've gone out to talk to you, but I had to go and see the headteacher."

"It's alright," Thomas said. "Do you know what happened?"

"Well, we were talking about what they wanted to do when they grew up. George said he wanted to work in the clock shop with his two daddies and I'm afraid a couple of the children said things like it was weird to have two dads and what happened to his mum and George got very upset. I'm sorry. Miss Stuart tried to comfort him, but he just said he wanted to go home. It won't happen again, Mr Barrow-Kent."

"Make sure it doesn't," Thomas said. "And if it does, I want to hear about it straight away. Understood?"

"Of course, Mr Barrow-Kent."

* * *

By some crazy coincidence, George's birthday fell on the same day as Thomas and Jimmy's wedding anniversary. It was George's seventh birthday and they were holding a party for all his classmates in the back garden, making the most of the final glimmer of summer. There was a magician, entertaining the children (as well as the few parents that had stayed) with card tricks and making rabbits appear out of hats. Thomas stepped inside for a moment, finding Jimmy in the kitchen arranging the egg mayonnaise sandwiches and pineapple on sticks. Thomas picked up a bag of Skips and poured them into an awaiting bowl, making sure to let his hands linger around his husband's waist as he moved from one side of the table to the other.

"Stop it, you," Jimmy said, but there was a smile on his lips as he starting chopping up cubes of cheese.

"Hard to believe he's been with us for two years," Thomas said, looking out towards the garden.

"I know," Jimmy replied, following his husband's gaze out the back door. "And we've been married for five."

"Only seems like five minutes, never mind five years."

"I know what you mean," Jimmy said. "He'll be grown up before we know where we are."

"Stop wishing our lives away! I'd like to treasure every moment we've got with him if you don't mind." Thomas picked up a tray with sandwiches on and headed towards the door. "You bring the crisps."

* * *

George, of course, carried on growing up. 'Daddy' became 'Dad', he left primary school and went on to secondary, a private school this time, after Mrs Hughes rang up one day and said George's biological parents' wills had been found, and they'd left a great sum of money to him that had been sat languishing in a bank account somewhere, left unknown and untouched until now. So he went to private school, wearing his tie too loose and skinny jeans instead of school trousers, breaking girl's hearts left, right and centre, coming home late on the weekends from the parties held by the upper sixth, struggling to walk in a straight line and crashing into things. Thomas and Jimmy seriously considered making the headmaster's office their second home on account of the amount of time they seemed to spend in there.

Nothing they said got through to him, and they watched in horror as his grades went down the pan and he came out of fifth form with 5 GCSEs.

Then he moved into the lower sixth and everything changed.

He fell in love with another boy.

He hadn't wanted to. He'd always liked girls, always - he'd told himself liking boys didn't count. It didn't count when he the only reason he went to the rugby games was to look at the players in their tight shorts, it didn't count when he gave a sloppy hand job to the captain of the hockey team at prom, and it didn't count when he knew the only reason he took English Lit at A level was because the teacher was hot. Really, it was stupid, and he knew that, because he had two dads - but there was a part of him that really didn't want to go through the 'you've got gay parents and that's why you're gay too' thing.

His name was Sam and he was a new student to the school when George started in the lower sixth. He'd looked nervous, standing there in his brand new blazer, crisp white shirt and neat tie, shoes polished so much George was sure he could have seen his reflection in them had he so wished. He'd been standing in the main entrance of the school, looking rather lost, when George had come across him.

"Well _damn_ ," George had said, looking the new student up and down with a smirk. "I think I found the reason I came back for sixth form."

Sam had smiled, blushed slightly and asked for directions to reception.

They'd been inseparable ever since.

Sam had helped, though. He made sure George did his homework, made sure he studied for all tests and exams, and if they occasionally made out or whatever, then that was nobody's business but theirs.

It was a chilly night in the middle of January when Thomas and Jimmy found out. They'd been out at a friend's, celebrating a birthday party, and George had mentioned something about having a friend over, which they didn't have a problem with. They'd noticed the difference in his behaviour since he'd moved up into the sixth form, and knew it couldn't be all down to suddenly realising that his grades did matter if he wanted to go to university, but they didn't know the actual reason.

Sam wasn't meant to be sleeping over. They'd planned to watch a couple of films, eat a pizza, drink a few beers and Sam would be home by half ten. But now it was well gone eleven, and what had started as an innocent night with a friend had turned into a whole lot more.

Thomas and Jimmy were home from the birthday party, expecting to find George asleep in bed, but that was not what they found. Thomas went to check on him when they got back, and found their son wrapped up under the blankets in the arms of another guy, both of whom were fast asleep. Thomas had smiled to himself, closed the door and left them to it.

"You'll never guess what," Thomas said when he was climbing into bed with Jimmy, reaching for his cigarettes from the bedside table.

"What?" Jimmy asked, turning to face his husband, taking a cigarette from the packet Thomas held out to him. 

"He's brought a guy home."

"Seriously?" Jimmy looked shocked as Thomas lit his cigarette for him. "Wow, I didn't see that one coming."

"Me neither, love, me neither."

* * *

When George woke up the next morning, it was to the unfamiliar feeling of someone's arms wrapped round his waist. He panicked for a moment, but relaxed when he realised it was Sam. Sam whose kisses reminded George of when he was little, when his dad's shoulders were the highest place in the world and his other dad was the best piano player he'd ever heard, Sam who had made him see sense, Sam who he didn't know what he'd do without, Sam who -

Sam who he'd fallen in love with.

George tried to make sense of this revelation as the sun streamed through the gaps in the blinds, falling onto Sam's back and making patterns on his pale skin. He could hear pots and pans rattling around in the kitchen, which meant his parents were probably both up and awake.

His parents.

George started to freak out again. What if they'd seen? What if -

Then he stopped himself because it was an absolutely stupid train of thought.

Sam started to stir next to him, stretching, untangling his various limbs from George's own, rubbing sleep from his eyes.

"Morning," he murmured. "What time is it?"

"Just gone nine," George replied with a glance at the clock. "You got somewhere you need to be?"

"No. Your parents won't mind if I stay?"

"Don't see any reason why they would."

"That's good," Sam said, snuggling back into the blankets and wrapping his arms around George again. "What about the gay thing?" he mumbled. "Will they mind that?"

"It'd be stupid if they did, trust me."

"Why's that?"

"I've got two dads."

 

In the kitchen, Thomas was putting the finishing touches on a breakfast tray for George and friend. There was orange juice, toast, a choice of jam or marmalade, a selection of fruit and Thomas had even gone to the trouble of sticking a flower in an old jar.

"He's going to hate you for this," Jimmy said as Thomas picked the tray up, heading towards George's bedroom.

"All the more reason for us to do it, then," Thomas said with a smile. "Besides, we're his parents, we're supposed to embarrass him from time to time. It's part of the job description."

* * *

George and Sam stayed together for the entirety of sixth form, both leaving with As and A*s, both headed for Russell Group universities. Sam went to Cambridge to study English, and George went to Leeds to do engineering. They took a break before they started uni, saying things like they didn't want to be tied down, or have to worry about the consequences of doing something stupid during Fresher's that they'd regret when they woke up remembered that they had a boyfriend at a different university. When university broke up for the Christmas holidays, George had got on the first train down to Cambridge, surprising Sam at his halls with a bottle of Buck's fizz and an engagement ring.

They stayed together for the rest of university, both attending each other's graduations, getting married in the summer between Sam going to start his PGCE and George going back to Thomas' shop to study clocks in more detail.

"You know," George said one evening to Jimmy when Thomas was downstairs closing up the shop, "I never thought I'd be like you and dad."

"What d'you mean by that?"

"I just never saw myself marrying another bloke is all."

Jimmy smiled and put down the magazine he was reading. "Well, if someone had told me when I was your age that I was going to end up marrying another bloke, I'd have laughed in their face too," he said. "Then I came in here one day to get a clock repaired and, well, the rest is history."

"That's how you met dad?"

"Yeah." Jimmy smiled at the memory. "I used to bring in clocks that didn't even need fixing just so I could see him. He knew exactly what I was doing, of course. Eventually, when he saw me coming into the shop one afternoon with a clock I'd brought in the week before, he just looked at me and said 'I know that clock isn't broken, so shall we just stop pratting around and go for a drink?'"

George smiled. "I guess love is kinda funny like that," he said. "Catches us unaware when we're least expecting it and makes us fall in love with the last person on the planet we'd ever end up."

"I guess it is," Jimmy said. "But trust me when I say that I wouldn't change the last twenty five years I've spent with your dad for anything. He means the absolute world to me, he really does."

"I feel the same about Sam," George said. "I saw him on that first day of sixth form standing there looking all lost and alone and I just _knew_ , you know?"

"Yeah," Jimmy smiled, thinking back to that fateful day one day in August when he'd had to take a clock to be repaired for his aunt. He'd walked into the shop, not really sure of what he was doing. Then he'd seen Thomas sitting behind the cash register and he too had 'just known' . "I do."

**Author's Note:**

> hang out with me on [tumblr](http://pllsetskyonice.tumblr.com//) for a questionable mix of fandoms and ships


End file.
